[Julie]

I submitted one of my sites last week to Google News, and it was approved for inclusion. It was indexed this week. The site is a news sites that was initially geared towards local Cleveland, Ohio people, but also included national and international interest articles. It was averaging about 25 to 50 uniques for the past couple months per day with no promotion, links or anything. That's pretty low traffic. It's only about 3 or 4 months old. Since being included in Google News, the traffic is rising considerably. Check out the stats (last column is unique visits):

10 Oct 2006 27
11 Oct 2006 25
12 Oct 2006 19
13 Oct 2006 16
14 Oct 2006 21
15 Oct 2006 17
16 Oct 2006 24
17 Oct 2006 135
18 Oct 2006 525
19 Oct 2006 591
20 Oct 2006 878

Oct. 17th was when it was added to Google News, late in the day. Pretty neat. I always wondered how much of an impact it would make to be included in Google News. I'm curious to see if it keeps rising... So far, entertainment and sports stories are the biggest draw....

Also, interestingly, the Google News traffic seems to produce a higher click through rate on AdSense ads on the site. I don't get that kind of click through on any of my sites with similiar traffic levels. I will also be watching this to see if that remains steady. I wonder if people who use Google News are more likely to click the ads.